Learning to Swear in America (3 page)

Yuri went back to the table and, using napkins for sanitation, grabbed three doughnuts. He ripped off a box lid and laid them inside, tossed in sugar packets and powdered creamer. He balanced the box lid on his arm and held her coffee in one hand, his tea in the other. When he got to the door, he realized he didn’t have a hand to open it.

“Excuse me. Security? Can you open door, please?” Yuri enjoyed making the guard walk back across the lobby.

The man opened the inner door for him, and Yuri stood in the
lobby and waited for him to open the outer door, too. The heat smacked him in the face. He was walking down the steps when he realized that he’d been afraid of the girl when she was coming at him. Now he was going to her? He thought about turning around, but if the guard was still there, it would be too embarrassing. The girl was fiddling with her phone, but she saw him and her face lit up and she smiled. He sighed and walked up to her.

“I thought maybe you wanted pastry,” he said, holding out the box, trying not to stare at the green glitter above her eyes.

“I did! There were so many on the table I thought I could sneak one.” She laid her phone on the planter and pulled out a chocolate-glazed cream-filled doughnut. Her rings, a different-colored one on every finger, caught the bright California sunlight.

Yuri held out the coffee and she took it, then scooted over and gestured toward the planter. He hesitated, then sat beside her. Only his toes touched the ground, so he inched forward so that his feet were down flat. It left him half leaning awkwardly on the planter. At least he wouldn’t look like a kid. The girl’s feet hung in the air, and as she rolled her toes under, her plastic shoes smacked against her heels.

“You won’t get in trouble for being out here?” she said.

“Pardon?” Then he realized she couldn’t see his name tag, and thought he was in food service. He laughed. The woman inside, who’d told him not to act like a waiter, would not have been pleased.

“You have a nice laugh.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Are you contradicting me?” She gave him a severe look that was undercut by the chocolate on her lip.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re wrong. My laugh sounds funny.” Why had he confessed that he didn’t like its sound?

“Well, I like it. But you probably don’t get a chance to practice it with those self-important jerks in there.”

Yuri flushed. Must be the combination of tea and sun, because what did he care what she thought?

“They’re doing important work,” he said.

“Yeah. But they could be nicer while they do it.”

He didn’t say anything, because she was right. He sipped his tea and tried desperately to think of something to say. The problem with conversations was that you had to know something about the other person—what would interest them. And how did you know that until you’d had the conversation?

“Are you in school?” she asked.

He wanted to congratulate her for thinking of something to say, but maybe it wasn’t as hard for her. “No, I finished.”

“Drop out or graduate?”

“Oh. Um, I graduated.”

“That’s good. Then you can go to college if you decide to.”

He just nodded. They were silent for a moment.

“I wish I was done with school,” she said.

“Why?”

She stared into her coffee cup. “I kinda hate my math teacher.”

He recoiled. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Why? You like math?”

“Very much. It’s language of universe.”

She blew air out sharply. “Then the universe is swearing at me.”

He thought about explaining math’s beauty to her, the elegance of an equation, the simplicity within the complexity. The thrill of touching truth and knowing it as ancient and unassailable, as permanent and profound. But he was a math guy—he didn’t have the words to do it—not in English. Probably not in Russian, either.

“I don’t like algebra,” she said, “but it’s mostly the teacher. I mean, he could spend his life searching for
x
without being such an a-hole, you know?”

Yuri nodded carefully. He was talking to a pretty American girl about math. Life wasn’t likely to get better than this—but he didn’t know how to proceed. He gave his cuffs a quick check, glad that he’d rolled them up. The shirt still seemed to fit. At least his arms hadn’t chosen today to shoot out longer.

His tea sloshed in the cup, and then he heard the rumble. “Is another earthquake, I think.” He set his cup on the ledge and moved to the street, hands out to his sides, looking up at the buildings.

“Yeah, it’s an aftershock,” she said. “The Cal Tech seismologists said we’d probably get a couple.”

“A couple? More than one?”

She shrugged. “You never know.”

“You need to stand in street.” He waved her over. “Is safer. In case glass falls.”

“We should be okay.” Her tongue scraped over the cream filling in her doughnut.

“No,” Yuri said. “I must insist.” He walked over to the planter, his stride wide for balance.

“Howdy, pardner,” the girl said.

He didn’t have time to find out what she meant, because he was taking her coffee and wanting his fingers to brush hers, but they didn’t. He set the cup on the planter and led her into the street.

“I think is okay now,” he said, eyeing the buildings around them.

“We’re going to get run over.”

“Is earthquake! Doesn’t traffic stop?”

“Not for this.” She started to say something, then stopped and said, “That’s my dad. Thanks for the doughnut.”

“Take one for him.”

She smiled at him and his stomach made a final flip, even though the rumbling underfoot was stopping. She ran back to the pastry box and picked up a cruller with her fingers. He winced at the lack of sanitation. Then she ran across the street and interlaced her fingers with those of the man walking there, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. She turned to wave as they walked away holding hands, the man eating his cruller. Yuri retrieved his tea and held it, watching her until she was lost to sight.

When he turned to go back into the building, he saw her phone lying on the planter. He retrieved it and brought the screen up. He got into her contacts and found a number listed under “home,” but who would he ask for? It really only made sense to look through her social media sites so he could find out her name. Just so he could return the phone properly. It wasn’t spying; it was chivalry.

There were photos at a picnic with a girl identified as Mary, and selfies at an art museum. And then he heard the
slap slap
of her plastic soles and looked up, and she was around the corner and running back toward him, her sundress a spot of color between the white buildings. He used his thumb to get out of her sites as he walked toward her. She smiled and he held the phone out.

“Thanks. I can’t believe I left it.” And then she was gone again.

Yuri stood watching her go a second time, then turned back to the planter to clear away the box. At least he had her phone number, even if he didn’t know her name. He had the phone number of a pretty American girl who might need help with math. He stuffed the box in a garbage can outside the building and smiled as he walked into the lobby.

Then he stood stock-still. He didn’t remember it. The number beside “home.” He couldn’t remember what it was. It was the greatest failure in the history of mathematics.

Jet lag had finally caught him and Yuri was sitting upright at his desk, dozing, when a soft kick at the door startled him awake.

“It’s Simons and Pirkola. You’re on our team.”

“Oh.” How did Americans give permission to come into a room? “Enter freely.” There. That sounded good.

Simons was smiling as he walked into the office, carrying two plates. He had bottles of water tucked in his armpits. Pirkola trailed, ashen, his hands wrapped around a glass bowl of applesauce covered with cellophane. What was left of Pirkola’s hair was dark, and he had serious biceps exposed under a navy polo. He must log significant gym time. Yuri was vaguely disappointed that they hadn’t all been issued matching shirts. He’d never been on a sports team. This was his best chance to be part of a group, and it wasn’t an unreasonable idea. The cosmonauts had matching shirts. Someone at NEO should have thought of this.

“Thought we’d have a late dinner in here. It’ll give us a chance to talk.” Simons handed him a plate.

“I’m not good for much,” Pirkola said. “Damn kidney stone.”

“Can’t they perform laser technique at hospital?” Yuri said.

“I don’t want to waste the time until we’ve got our part figured out.” Pirkola took the cellophane off his applesauce and stared at it. The sweat on the plastic matched his upper lip. “What have you been doing so far?”

“Uh … just getting … adjusted. Looking at what we’re doing.” He wondered if Simons would make another boy-genius crack, but he seemed to have come in peace.

“We should have found this thing sooner,” Simons said, taking a pull on his water bottle. “I can’t quite let go of that.”

Yuri shrugged. “BR1019 is from out of solar system, with orbit sharply off plane. There was some attention to L4 and L5 of Sun-Jupiter system, but as far out as 1019’s orbit goes, and with budget cuts in Russia and here? Nobody was looking.”

“I know,” Simons said glumly.

“There’s about a hundred people in the world who look for these things,” Pirkola said, fingering his spoon. “And it’s a big sky.”

They ate without attention to the food, leaning together, talking. After an hour a loudspeaker crackled on, and a woman’s voice said, “The sun is setting.”

“Sun is setting? They make announcement?”

Simons nodded. “There’s a good view from the west lobby. Come on.”

Yuri followed the older man down the hall to a three-story stairwell with a glass wall. Scientists lined the stairs and spread across the upper hall, gripping the railing, watching the sun set. It was beautiful, Yuri thought, pink and purple streaks across an orange sky, brighter than at home. Stronger colors.

“Seventeen left,” someone murmured. One guy walked over to horizontal strips of colored duct tape stuck on the wall beside the window. There was an orange piece, and below it a purple, then a pink, repeating downward. The guy ripped off the top strip and balled it in his hand, working it with nervous fingers. It left seventeen strips. Then Yuri got it—seventeen sunsets. One strip for every day left.

It was unsettling to see their lives displayed in duct tape—and to hear a day rip away. Yuri was suddenly tired. He yawned, and Pirkola
thunked
him on the back.

“If you call ‘1’ from your office, they’ll get you a ride to your hotel.”

Yuri nodded but stayed behind to watch the last orange glow. Then he explored the lower corridor. Cafeteria, storage rooms, and, farther down the hall, voices. He followed them: baritones talking over one another, laughing, and as he got closer, Yuri heard the flip of cards and clink of poker chips on a table. Decibels rose and waned, and he saw the undulations as they would look if graphed. The science of social life. He wanted to listen, was drawn toward the voices just as, on evening walks in Moscow, he looked through undraped windows into homes where people gathered over food or games, caught glimpses of girls turning to smile at
people who were not him, men opening bottles of vodka, then holding them aloft as people clapped. Family, friends. He would stand outside, light spilling onto the street, almost to his feet.

He turned the corner, intending to loiter nearby, but the voices floated from a staff lounge with its door thrown wide, and he was standing in front of it. Four men in janitorial gray looked up at him, smiles fading slowly as they saw him. They sat on mismatched chairs around a small table covered with poker chips. Two of the men were black, one Hispanic, one white. The poker chips were red, white, and blue. The whole scene looked almost comically American.

“You lost?” one of the men called.

“Uh—no. Just exploring.” Yuri started to move on, embarrassed, though he couldn’t have said why.

“We’re on break,” the older black guy said, rocking back in his chair, his cards fanned across his chest.

Yuri shrugged. Not his business.

“You’re NASA?” the guy said. “You an intern or something?”

Yuri flushed. “No. I’m physicist.”

The men exchanged glances.

“You working with them? You a genius or something?”

“Well, yeah.”

That made them laugh, and Yuri flushed again, not sure if he was being mocked.

The older guy patted a crate filled with procedural manuals, and Yuri walked over and sat. It was the kids’ table in a janitor’s
lounge, but he was happy to be there. The men finished their hand, and the Hispanic guy facing Yuri grinned and raked the chips toward him while the others howled.

“So up there,” the older man said, gathering the cards, “are you the smartest guy in the room?”

“Sure as hell is down here,” the white guy said, and they all laughed.

Yuri thought for a moment. “No, probably not. But it’s impressive room.”

They nodded. The older guy shuffled. “Lemme ask you something.” Instead of asking, he dealt the cards, one down, then one up. Thick, calloused fingers moved stacks of chips to the center of the table. “So if this thing hits us,” he said, sliding a card to another man as he tapped his knuckle on the table, “what’s it going to be like?”